I love naps. Always have, but the fibromyalgia made them a bitter necessity rather than a lovely luxury for weekends and cruise ships. During the last year that I was working, there were times I locked my office door so I could take a quick snooze. At least twice, I curled up under my desk. I still need a nap almost every day, but the state of my retirement (as opposed to my former employer, the state of Florida) allows me to stretch out on my own bed, among gentle breezes from room fans and the comfort from proximity with a couple of carefully positioned pets. Anakin has taken over Chelsea’s spot nearest me, except when he decides to emulate the late, great Ira and sit on top of me to make sure I’m still breathing.
I really did play in the dirt quite a lot as a kid - I was sort of a tomboy - but now I call it gardening. I really like to get in there and do the dirty work. Never mind that I had my nails done on Friday, I rarely wear gardening gloves unless I am handling the bougainvillea or the roses. Or picking cucumbers, now that I think of it. My garden was in need of some serious attention, and for once, the weather was not too awful, if you ignore the rain shower that arrived with little notice.
I wanted to accomplish three specific tasks - to clear the overgrown beds on the west side of the house, to straighten up the strawberry bed, and to start some seeds in my porch rail boxes. Just 10 minutes into pulling dead tomato plants from the dirt, my back gave a twinge to remind me that people with fibromyalgia don’t generally make the long haul when it comes to stuff like gardening. That’s why you have a terrific handyman, the same one who built the terraced beds for you, my back told me, with a big sigh because we’d had this same conversation numerous times in the past.
So in the end, I got just one of those garden tasks done, and the other two are sitting out there getting beaten up by the fringe storms from Hurricane Michael.
My urban garden, started some months after the end of Life-As-I-Knew-It, has brought me much enjoyment, as well as countless vegetables. I don’t get the really high yields, but what I do get I use in my cooking. As I was clearing the beds and pulling out dead tomato plants, I noticed that there were 3 kinds of peppers and one Japanese eggplant waiting to be harvested. In October! From an early spring planting! And let’s not forget that perennial herb, rosemary. This is her third season in our herb garden, outliving the rest of that Simon and Garfunkel song.
Simple pleasures. Life is good.
I left a couple of those pepper plants and the two eggplant plants in place, just giving them a much-needed trim. Will they gift me with more veggies? Stay tuned.
I wanted to accomplish three specific tasks - to clear the overgrown beds on the west side of the house, to straighten up the strawberry bed, and to start some seeds in my porch rail boxes. Just 10 minutes into pulling dead tomato plants from the dirt, my back gave a twinge to remind me that people with fibromyalgia don’t generally make the long haul when it comes to stuff like gardening. That’s why you have a terrific handyman, the same one who built the terraced beds for you, my back told me, with a big sigh because we’d had this same conversation numerous times in the past.
So in the end, I got just one of those garden tasks done, and the other two are sitting out there getting beaten up by the fringe storms from Hurricane Michael.
My urban garden, started some months after the end of Life-As-I-Knew-It, has brought me much enjoyment, as well as countless vegetables. I don’t get the really high yields, but what I do get I use in my cooking. As I was clearing the beds and pulling out dead tomato plants, I noticed that there were 3 kinds of peppers and one Japanese eggplant waiting to be harvested. In October! From an early spring planting! And let’s not forget that perennial herb, rosemary. This is her third season in our herb garden, outliving the rest of that Simon and Garfunkel song.
Simple pleasures. Life is good.
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